Middle boxes simply block QUIC so that won’t help
No they do not unless they’ve been specifically updated to do so since QUIC is just UDP. From Google’s experiments very few middleware had problems such that they made QUIC impossible. That’s why Chrome has been using QUiC by default to Google services for a decade or maybe even slightly more.
And given that it’s the next evolution of TCP and a requirement for HTTP/3 it seems like the opposite direction of better QUIC compatibility is likely.
If you have a middle box in the way fiddling with your traffic then bypassing it is just a policy matter. Companies don’t put these things inline for fun, they do it because they want to block traffic.
Allowing bypassing it breaks their policy.
If you own your own network then you don’t need to worry about middle boxes interfering with quic or http.
That just isn't borne out by the data. QUIC builds upon the learnings of SPDY and encrypts and protects a bunch of control structure to make it impossible for middleboxes to tamper with connections (e.g. forging client disconnect packets) [1]. 75% of Facebook traffic runs QUIC which indicates that middleboxes are largely not blocking QUIC.
> Companies don’t put these things inline for fun, they do it because they want to block traffic. Allowing bypassing it breaks their policy
Right. And QUIC is a technical response to say "no - you have to control the actual endpoint to enforce the policy, you can only control endpoint access to your network but you have to be a common carrier once you allow that access". A telephone equivalent would be the telephone company discontinued your call because they didn't like what you were saying to the other person on the end of the line (& this is ignoring the fact that QUIC also improves request errors, tail latency and other quantifiable metrics by excluding the kinds of actions that carriers can take on that traffic).
[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RNHkx_VvKWyWg6Lr8SZ-saqs...
[2] https://engineering.fb.com/2020/10/21/networking-traffic/how...
The impact of middle boxes is overhyped on HN. Games use all kind of random ports and UDP (or TCP), it still works. Them not working on shitty company networks has no impact for real networks.
You either have a box in the way intercepting traffic for policy reasons, in which case quic won’t help as it would be blocked for breaking policy, or you don’t have a box in the way, in which case quic has no benefits (in terms of middle boxes)